It did say he waited 30 years. Had it been a auction tag they would have swept it under the rug just like happened in Utah
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From the article:Well that should pretty well clear up anymore self reporting of game violations in MT. I wonder what the punishment would have been had he not self reported and they were able to convict him of it. It doesn't read like it would have been anymore severe. Crazy.
Basically, thanks to the zero-tolerance writing of the law, he couldn't do anything about the fine and the 30 months, but he could have taken his privileges for more if he wanted to.“The law says ‘shall,’ not ‘may,’ so that pretty much takes the discretion away from the judge,” Strine said. But he added that he could have suspended Fleming’s sportsman privileges for considerably longer than he did.
This sets a very bad precedent. The guy would have got the same fine if he would have SSS and got caught, instead he did the right thing and they threw the book at him. We all know they just set an example where more people will likely SSS when a mistake is made.
They didn't "throw the book at him". Take a look at the post by ChrisS. Looks like the offender could've gotten up to 18 months of jail time in addition to the fine and loss of hunting privileges.